RadioShack PRO-2045

New to the RadioShack line of scanners is the PRO-2045. This base/mobile unit offered an intriguing combination of features and frequency coverage that I found hard, all right impossible, to resist. I placed my order and waited impatiently for it to arrive (as anyone does for a new toy)! After spending some "quality" time with it, I thought I'd offer up a few words about it. What follows are my personal impressions regarding the features and performance of this scanner. This, in no way, should be viewed as an endorsement to purchase this radio nor is it intended to discourage anyone from buying it. I have no personal or business relations with Tandy Corporation. These are simply thoughts offered to my fellow hobbyists who may be interested in purchasing this particular radio. I simply ask that this information be kept intact. A lot of hard work and effort has gone into the testing and writing of this review. I would appreciate it if every effort is made to keep this document whole with me as the original author. And if you want to share your thoughts about this review with me or have further questions, feel free to send e-mail. Thank you and enjoy! Rich Wells N2MCA Strong Signals web site

What You Get

PRO-2045

Antenna

AC adapter

Instruction manual

Model Tested

Serial #: 650076xx

Dated : 3A6 (March 1996)

Basic Specs

Channels	200
Banks	10
Coverage	29-54 108-174 216-512 806-1000
Scan	50 channels/second
Search	100/300 freqs/second
Steps	5 & 12.5 kHz
Modes	FM & AM
Sensitivity	0.5 - 0.8 uv FM, 1.5 uv AM
Conversion	Triple
IFs	1=380.7 2=10.85 3=0.450 MHz
Priority	10 channels
Search skip	50 frequencies
S-meter	No
Delay	Programmable 2 second
Lockout	Per channel
Attenuator	Per channel & search
Lock	Tuner
Tone codes	CTCSS optional
Rotary control	Yes
Channel count	Yes
Data skip	Yes
Weather	Pre-programmed
Weather Alert	Yes
Light	Display
Power	120V AC
Audio	1W
Memory	volatile; 3 day backup

The case is entirely black plastic. It is similar in size to the PRO-2006 making it quite compact and more "manageable" than the PRO-2042 or BC9000XLT. Especially if you are going to use it mobile.

The front panel contains the volume and squelch controls, and earphone jack along the left hand side. To the immediate right are two rows of 12 control buttons. Next up is the display along the top with three rows of 17 control buttons just below it. Just to the right of the display are seven more buttons with the rotary control below them. That's right...a rotary control...which is becoming more prevalent on today's models much to everyone's satisfaction. The rotary control contains a dimple to aid in "speed" tuning.

And in the very bottom right-hand corner, in small lettering, is the PRO-2045 moniker.

On the bottom, near the front, are two fold-down feet with rubber grips. They can be left up which affords about a half inch of elevation, or can be folded down giving an additional 3/4 inch elevation. Near the rear of the unit are two additional rubber feet which give about a 1/8 inch clearance.

The top of the radio contains a black plastic grill toward the rear for the internal speaker. The grill measures approximately three by six inches. The manual specs the speaker as 2 7/16 inches (57mm).

The back of the unit holds the BNC antenna connector, information sticker, manufacturing date code sticker and AC adapter jack. Notice that this unit uses an AC adapter just like the BC9000XLT. It is very easy to unplug this radio to take it mobile if you should so desire.

You'll just need to get a DC adapter (like No. 270-1533) to power it from your cigarette lighter. The antenna supplied is one that most Uniden owners will recognize immediately. It's a black plastic push-on BNC connector with a metal right-angle adapter connecting it to a 4-element telescoping whip terminated in a black plastic cap.

Anybody else starting to get the feeling that this model, like many others, just might be made by Uniden for RadioShack?

Features
Let's start with one of the most useful features this radio has; the rotary control. This can be used to scroll through the programmed memory contents and, more importantly, to change the frequency being displayed. You can use it directly off of a memory channel frequency, or when you have stopped on a frequency during search mode. This control can also be locked to prevent accidental activation. There is a dedicated key, just like the BC9000XLT, which determines which mode the control is in; frequency, channel or lock.

The display is quite a large LCD containing indicators for frequency, channel, banks, and the various modes which are too numerous to list here. The display contrast is very crisp and pleasing. The backlight is on constantly and provides a nice, even, orange illumination.

I find this display more aesthetically pleasing than the dot-matrix characters used in the BC9000XLT. The display is very readable from most angles except from below so don't plan to put it on a shelf above eye-level if you care to read it!

All of the keys and controls are black plastic with white lettering. The keys are well sized and spaced. One disappointment here is that the volume and squelch have no "stripe" marking on them. They do have a pointer ridge but the black color does not help to make them evident.

Another setback is the fact that the numeric keypad is not a standard format. Having the decimal point and 0 keys along the right hand edge, rather than the bottom, is a large annoyance to this user. All keys do have good tactile feedback though.

The audio on this unit has plenty of power with a good sounding tonal quality. If anything, it might have a little too much treble. But after to listening to the BC9000XLT, I prefer the 2045 because it has much better mid-range making the voices sound more natural. Usable volume before distortion sets in is about 90%. However, above 75% there is too much background "hiss" heard making it uncomfortable to listen to.

Speaking of audio, let's talk about the keyboard beep on this radio. It's much too loud! By about a factor of three. It is also independent of the volume setting unlike the BC9000XLT. Luckily, the manual tells you how to disable this annoyance.

Like most RadioShack models, each programmed memory channel can be locked out so that it will be skipped during scanning and a 2-second delay can be added. Additionally, the 2045 allows each channel an attenuator setting.

Another feature that some find useful is the channel counter. With every memory channel, there is associated with it a counter. This counter is used to indicate the number of times that channel has had activity. Every time the radio opens the squelch for a memory channel frequency, it bumps the counter by one. When the unit is powered on, all counters are set to zero. There is also a way to reset the counter manually.

The counter maxes out at 99 and will not increment, interestingly, if the channel is locked out. If you just "sit" on one channel and are displaying the count for that channel, every time you get a transmission the counter increments; as long as it is not locked out.

The earphone jack provides a monaural signal to a set of headphones or earphone. Using an earphone, there was no noise or clicking heard while scanning or searching.

The priority, CTCSS and weather alert features are described below in their own sections.

Programming
Programming of this radio is no different than any of the other RadioShack models. Find the channel you want to program by scrolling through memory using the rotary control or by directly inputting the channel number. Press PROG to enter programming mode and then type in your frequency. You can also decide whether you want to turn on delay, lockout or the attenuator for this channel. You can even program one channel per bank as the priority channel (see Priority section for details).

The radio will automatically round the frequency to its "proper" value if need be to conform to the step size assigned to the band within which the frequency resides. It will also automatically select AM or FM mode which can be overridden using the MODE key.

To erase the contents of a particular channel, a value of 0 is programmed. The radio will automatically lockout that channel (the lockout indicator comes on) and it is not possible for you to turn it off. I am sure this made Mr. Parnass happy to no end!

Scanning
Once you have your frequencies programmed in it's time to scan for activity! Simply press the SCAN button and watch it go. Banks are selected and unselected for scanning by pressing the appropriate bank number key.

To speed up the scanning program, the 2045 can be configured to scan the channels within a bank by increasing frequency rather than by increasing channel number (the default). When auto sort has been enabled, the AUTO indicator lights while the 2045 scans.

This radio also has the data skip feature which they claim will skip over non-modulated or data frequencies (pager or trunked). It works well on non-modulated carriers and does a pretty good job for paging signals. However, it has a tough time with trunked data channels as would be expected. Once encountered, it takes about 2 seconds of steady tone for the radio to detect some "constancy" and move on. The manual notes that this feature does not work for AM mode.

There is also a feature allowing you to review all the locked out channels in all banks. Similar to Uniden models, there are functions that allow you to move a channel frequency to another channel or two swap the contents of two channels.

Scanning speed is very fast but does not quite live up to the 100 channels/second claimed in the specifications. With auto-sort on it's around 70-80 channels/second and drops to 60-70 when off if you have a mix of wide ranging frequencies.

One comment here with regard to scanning a mix of of VHF and UHF frequencies. I was experimenting with a bank of VHF commercial and UHF military aeronautical frequencies and noticed a faint clicking sound coming from the speaker while scanning. Locking out either all the VHF or UHF frequencies removed this clicking sound. It's not intrusive but you will notice it if you have little or no background noise while you are scanning. We're obviously getting some switching noise bleeding into the audio circuitry.

Searching
There are three search types available using this radio : limit, direct and auto. Limit search allows you to search between two programmable edges. Direct search allows for searching up or down from a reference frequency. Auto search is a limit search that stores any active frequencies found in banks you designate.

During any search, you can override the automatic AM/FM mode, use delay to pause for a response after a transmission ends and the attenuator if you have problems with intermodulation in the region you are searching. Similarly, the data skip feature can be used in the limit and direct searches as long as you aren't using AM mode.

While performing a limit search, you can interrupt the search by simply turning the rotary control one notch. You can then use the rotary control or the up and down arrows to tune accordingly. To resume the search in either direction, simply press and hold down the appropriate arrow key until searching resumes.

A direct search is initiated through either entering a frequency via the keypad or selecting a memory channel and then pressing the up or down arrow key. I like the direct search off of a memory channel but would have preferred if they had implemented the direct feature of the PRO-60 or the tune feature of the PRO-2042. These features allow a frequency to be entered directly so that it can be listened to just like the VFO feature found on a typical iCOM, Yupiteru, AOR, etc. rig.

During a limit or direct search, you have access to the Skip Search features. This allows you to lock out up to 50 frequencies that you don't want the radio to stop on while searching. There is also a handy review function that allows you to view the contents of the search skip memory. Each search skipped frequency is tagged with a number and using the up and down arrows, you can step through this memory to not only see what's in there, but to also remove frequencies so they will no longer be skipped.

This is very handy and is found on the PRO-26 and PRO-2042. It makes the Uniden approach seem very antiquated and cumbersome. But be warned, if you are having a good old time putting in skip frequencies, once you fill up 50 slots, it automatically wraps to the first slot and overwrites what is already in that memory slot. This is like the PRO-26 but unlike the PRO-2042 which simply displays a message indicating the memory is full and therefore no more frequencies can be put into the search skip memory.

Auto search works quite well and is considered "smart" in that it will not store a frequency that has already been stored into memory. Once you have the limits programmed, you select the banks you wish to store frequencies in. And you may select more than one bank unlike most Icom, Yupiteru and AOR models.

During operation, any active frequency not already stored will be transferred to the next available memory channel. Searching is resumed immediately without waiting for the signal to go away. I like this mode of operation but have heard of those who prefer to stay on frequency until the transmission goes away before the search is resumed.

There are also two search speeds. The 2045 defaults to a rate of 100 steps per second. If you are searching a range which has 5 kHz steps, you can press the H/S (HyperSearch) key to increase the search speed to 300 steps per second.

RF performance
After looking at the specs you get a hint of what this radio is capable of. I believe these numbers, as usual, are on the conservative side! This radio held its own against the BC9000XLT and PRO-2042 and in some cases outperformed them plain and simple! But there is always a compromise; too much sensitivity usually results in undue imaging and intermodulation problems. However, I found the compromise that was made to be quite acceptable! For the most part, the 2045 was compared to the BC9000XLT with both radios using their stock antennas.

Let's start off with a birdie check. I found 20 scanning the entire receive range which is pretty good for such wide coverage. There were 3 in the VHF-lo band, 5 in VHF-aero, 2 in UHF-aero, 1 in US government 400, 1 in UHF-lo, 5 in the 800s and 3 in the 900s.

Now let's take images. The nature of triple conversion and high IFs help to keep out your normal images. But this unit does seem to still have some problems. The worst were images throughout the VHF air band which, although very attenuated, still managed to open the squelch allowing an empty hiss to fill the speaker.

I live in a fairly rich RF environment surrounded by Raleigh, Durham, Cary and Research Triangle Park. While probably not up to snuff with some of the denser city environments, it is nothing to take lightly. The 2045 handled itself quite well. I had very few run-ins with intermod throughout the entire range with special attention to the VHF hi band.

Whether the radio was using the stock antenna or a 4 foot whip mounted about 15 feet up, the front-end produced nearly identical results. Much better than my 2037 which produces garbage at 24 different frequencies due to mixings with TV channel 6 alone!

Next up is sensitivity. Like I mentioned earlier, don't let the conservative numbers in the manual specifications fool you. Comparing the 2045 to the BC9000XLT for a mix of frequencies spread across a wide range, I generated the following table :

Remember, these results were obtained with both units using their stock antennas. Where the 2045 won, the BC9000 was usually not far behind but the 2045 usually had a stronger signal and better quieting.

I would qualify the squelch tail for this unit as moderate when the squelch is set at its tightest setting. Loosening it a bit improves it a bit. It is quite similar to the BC9000XLT but not quite as good as the PRO-2037 or PRO-2006.

Priority
Unlike many of the RadioShack models which have just one priority channel, the 2045 comes with ten; one for each bank. Initially the priority channel for each bank is assigned to the first channel in that bank but this can be changed if desired.

While scanning, the priority mode can be enabled. Every two seconds each priority channel is checked for each bank being scanned. The channels are checked from the lowest numbered to the highest. If any activity is detected on a priority channel, it is monitored until that activity ceases and can not pre-empted. It is also possible to lock out the priority channels to keep them from being checked when priority mode is enabled.

There is also a review feature that allows you to step through all the priority channels for easy confirmation.

CTCSS
The PRO-2045 comes with the ability to install an optional CTCSS decoder just like the BC890XLT and BC9000XLT radios. When I ordered the radio, the dealer did not have the CTCSS board in stock. So I simply called up RadioShack Unlimited and ordered one for $40. This price is better than the $50 - $55 I have seen from Uniden. And they look remarkably similar! It arrived in five days via US Postal Service.

Installation is easy. Simply remove the three bottom screws and the two which hold the top half of the radio on. The board plugs in firmly (just make sure you have the "legs" lined up nicely before applying pressure) and your back in business in two minutes.

Programming the CTCSS tones for each channel is straight forward and less convoluted than the BC9000XLT. One major difference between this radio and the BC9000XLT is that CTCSS is a mode for the 2045. On the BC9000XLT, once you program in a CTCSS tone for a channel, you are enabling CTCSS decode for it. On the 2045, you can enter a CTCSS code for a channel but CTCSS decoding will not be enabled unless you turn on CTCSS mode. This is how the RELM HS200 works too.

Once you have programmed all your CTCSS codes, it's easy to see what code is programmed for each channel. Simply turn on CTCSS and use the rotary tuner to scroll through memory. If the channel has a CTCSS code associated with it (other than 0.0), the display will alternate between the frequency and the CTCSS code. Much easier than the BC9000XLT!

It works great and should prove very helpful to those who live in rich RF areas where an externally mounted antenna might help to generate undue imaging or intermod. And for those of you who still have multiple agencies on the same VHF/UHF frequency, you can use this feature to weed out those you don't want to listen to.

As a side note, I could not find a hidden monitor mode, similar to that on the BC890XLT and BC9000XLT, which allows you to more easily determine the unknown CTCSS code for an agency. It appears as though they may have removed this "back door"!

Weather Alert
Another interesting feature of this radio is its weather alert capability. The radio itself has been preprogrammed with 7 NOAA weather frequencies used in the US. And it also has the capability of detecting the NOAA severe weather emergency signals.

To start, you have to use the weather scan feature to detect which NOAA frequency is used in your area. You now select which mode you want to detect the alert form.

For normal mode, you simply press the ALERT button. The display remains lit with the frequency displayed along with the WX and ALERT indicators.

For standby mode, you press and hold down ALERT until the display turns off. I guess it depends on whether or not you like to have a night light!

Regardless of the mode, the scanner is in an inactive state for any other use. When a severe broadcast signal is detected, the radio "wakes up" and emits a LOUD alarm. The alarm is similar to an air raid siren that slowly builds in intensity and is bound to get your attention! The alarm will continue to sound until the severe broadcast signal stops.

The manual provides a method for testing the siren should you care to test the limits of your eardrums! It also mentions that the weather frequency must be received in sufficient strength to trigger the alarm.

The alert does work as advertised. Recent severe thunderstorms in my area prompted NOAA to issue approximately ten alerts within a 1.5 hour period. Regardless of whether normal or standby mode was used, the radio "woke up" on cue. The alert "spooled" up for about five seconds, stayed at full volume (yikes!) for about 3 seconds then "spooled down" in about 2 seconds. After this the audio was unmuted and you heard the National Weather Service advisory.

For the normal mode, once the radio woke up it did not go back to sleep (i.e. mute the audio). It appears you have to perform this manually. Whether there is no protocol for turning off the radio (probably) or the 2045 was not programmed to act on it (less likely), it is an annoyance.

Under standby mode, once awake, the radio continued with active audio for about ten minutes after which it shut off. And it did not go back into standby mode; it appeared to remain in normal mode since there was no audio but the display was lit.

Regardless of the mode, both still activated the alert whenever a new set of warnings were broadcast by NOAA which is good.

Ranking

Here's the ranking criteria

Overall
The 1997 RadioShack catalog price of $350 for the 2045 is, as usual, a bit steep. Especially considering you can get a BC9000XLT for that much or less these days. However, several retailers carry this radio and I purchased this particular unit for $280 which I feel is a good price for a radio with these features and such good performance.

I am very pleased with this radio and would recommend it for anyone in the market for a higher end unit with 200 channels, auto-store, search skip, weather alert and military UHF coverage.

For some additional insights into this new scanner, be sure to check out the review by Bob Parnass in the February '97 issue of Monitoring Times.

February 20, 1997

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Copyright © 2010 by Richard J. Wells